Each crime takes less than a minute, but leaves thousands of dollars worth of damage.
While one person waits in a getaway car, a masked man tosses a large rock through the glass door of a cigar shop. Once in the shop, he goes straight for the cash register, past the assorted cigars and merchandise. Then he goes for the cash, sometimes carrying the entire register back through the shattered door, and loads it in the car. Then the two are gone.
“He was in my store for 37 seconds,” said Jim Luftman, owner of Blue Havana II in Alpharetta.
Luftman’s store was among the first to be hit in the Atlanta area on Aug. 25. But by Tuesday morning, the number of shops hit by the smash-and-grabbers had grown to 28, spanning the metro area, according to information compiled by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News. While a handful of shops have surveillance images, none of the cases have been solved. And while the suspects have sometimes come up empty-handed or with less than $100, the damage to the stores is reaching thousands of dollars, owners said.
“Everyone is paying more in damage to their store than the money they’re getting,” Howard Jones, a manager of a Douglas County shop, said Tuesday. “It makes no sense to us.”
The shop where Jones works is believed to have been the first one hit on Aug. 22. In less than three weeks, cigar shops in Fulton, Forsyth, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb, Bartow, Cherokee, Coweta, and Carroll counties have also been robbed, according to various law enforcement agencies. As many as six shops were burglarized in one night, with the suspects targeting a particular geographic area for each night’s work.
The latest shops targeted early Tuesday included two in the Marietta and Kennesaw area and three in Cherokee County, where the Sheriff’s Office, Canton police and Holly Springs police all confirmed separate cases under investigation.
After his shop was hit, Luftman went to work warning other shop owners about the crimes, calling stores from Augusta to Athens and Rome, he said. He’s also been in touch with police agencies when he hears of the crimes through word of mouth. Damage at his store will cost between $6,000 and $7,000 to repair.
“Every one of these shops are ‘mom and pop,’” Luftman told The AJC. “I’m here 80 hours a week. This is my livelihood, This is my food on the table. This is not a business we’re going to get rich in.”
Some store owners targeted in the string of crimes declined to discuss the incidents for fear of getting hit again or of copycat crimes. Others have used it as an opportunity to increase security, such as adding surveillance cameras and removing all cash from the registers at closing time. Security alarms aren’t fast enough for police to catch the suspects.
But Jones, whose store is in a strip shopping center, said surveillance cameras can’t be placed everywhere outside. And if they are unable to get a tag number from a vehicle, pictures of a masked suspect are of little help.
“You’re not going to see who it is,” Jones said.
Luftman suggested small business owners double-check cameras to make sure they’re working properly, and that there’s plenty of memory space. Additionally, report the crimes to local police so that when suspects are captured, they can be linked to all the break-ins they’re responsible for, Luftman said.
Anyone with information about the crimes is asked to contact their local police department.
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